


Campfire (Baking Chocolate)

by kit_fox



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Autumn, Bonfire, Camping, Food, Halloween, M/M, Sexy Times, general silliness, in tents, repressed feelings, spooky storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 01:03:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8182889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kit_fox/pseuds/kit_fox
Summary: Kylo convinces Hux to go on a camping trip.  He attempts to melt the General's ice with good food and spooky storytelling, but it's harder than it seems when both of them are so good at hiding.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Submitted to the Huxloween challenge for the bonfire prompt! Kylo's scary story is a modified version of a Vietnamese folk tale and is, according to legend, quite true. Hux's more scientific scary story is from my own brains and is entirely true, I promise you, every word.
> 
> The use of home made marshmallows as an afrodisiac is yet to be effectively tested by science. I am still waiting for volunteers. Call me.

“It’s a good idea.”

“It is a perfectly ridiculous idea, and I’ve no time for such adolescent buffoonery.”

“You’ll have plenty of time for it in just another second -- hold on, someone needs you.”

Hux snapped his head around at Ren’s nod and looked down at a rabbitlike young corporal holding out a memo for him to sign. He had been trying to keep his ludicrous conversation with Ren out of anyone’s earshot, so he nabbed the pad from her and signed it without his usual strict read-through.

“There, perfect timing,” said Ren, snatching the data pad from the corporal and dismissing her with a wave. “You have the entire weekend free, you just approved a leave request for yourself.”

Hux turned deep red and snatched the pad away from the knight, trying to keep his livid growls under his breath.

“You are a child!” he hissed. “Haven’t you anything more important to do than botch my every attempt at running this place?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t enjoy it as much.” Kylo walked the General a little further away from the noise and bustle of the work floor to a quieter hallway where he could pester him in private. “Think about it a moment. You’re always lecturing the soldiers about team building and working as a cohesive unit... why not see this as an exercise in that very principle?”

The General’s nose wrinkled beneath disdainful eyes.

“Camping,” he said flatly. “In the _woods._ Out of _doors._ With _you.”_

“And those are just the highlights!” said Kylo, slapping him on the back, which made the ginger’s thin body jolt forward and his scowl deepen. “Come on. You already have your leave approved.”

Hux squinted at that mask, as ever trying to catch some hint of what expression might lie past its inscrutable architecture. He had been trained to read every section of a person’s features, every twitch or absence of a twitch, every eye dart, every lip bite, every bead of sweat, to analyze their current state of mind and their potential next move. Ren was a fucking sphinx. Even that jovial tone was warped and modulated so what might once have sounded inviting came out sounding sarcastic and twisted.

And there was that other thing. That thing that Hux had difficulty admitting even to himself. That even though Ren had been making an effort lately, had been in his face and trying for his attention like an idiotic schoolboy, had been positively _flirty_... Hux simply could not believe it. There was no reason to believe it. He, like none of their other peers, had seen Ren without the mask, had seen Ren without several things actually, meeting him in the training room after he’d finished beating the hell out of a stage seven fencing droid and standing over it with his hair tangled and damp, sweat slipping and joyriding its way down his perfect spine, shining along his absolutely ridiculous shoulders. He’d had a difficult time that day remembering what he’d come to ask.

A man like that paying him any attention -- skinny, gangly, pale, freckled, grouchy _him_ \-- was only after one thing. A good laugh. And Hux was not a man for jokes.

“See me when you have something important to discuss, Ren,” he said and turned away for his office, fuming.

He welcomed the silence of his office; minimalist, pristine, grey. Like his mind, he often thought, with a little splatter of self loathing. He pulled up his work screen to find a message waiting. Once opened, it showed a series of bright, near blinding images of a nearby planet, forest trails and waterfalls and smiling people holding recently dead animals. He groaned and deleted the message just as his door buzzed.

“Oh WHAT,” he said.

Kylo walked in, releasing himself from his mask with a soft hiss and shaking his hair free. He was already smiling, the idiot.

“You get the brochure?”

Hux was in, if such a thing were possible, even less of a jocular mood. He hated watching Ren take off that damned mask. By all rights he should look disgusting after wearing it for hours -- sweaty and red with his hair sticking up all over. Not Ren. Every fucking moment he looked like some marble sculpted statue of the tragic heroes in the suspended gardens on Arkanis -- perfect and irresistibly touchable, even when slick with rain as they always were. Hux coughed into his glove.

“I did. Very amusing.”

Kylo frowned and set his mask down on one of Hux’s chairs, leaning over his desk to look at him. He had always gotten some form of resistance from the General, some snappish, frigid spikiness that ignited his own proclivity for sarcasm, making their exchanges significantly more hostile than he ever intended. Often a simple “Good morning” could be greeted with “If you have time for that sort of thing” and they were off. He didn’t know when exactly he had begun wanting something different. 

There had been moments, flickering glances, waves of sharp green pulsing out from the General that Kylo dared not look into further without permission but something was there that he recognized, something he wanted to know more about. Something of which he got a much stronger sense every time Hux bit his lips inward and released them slowly, looking down at his hands rather than at Kylo. He wanted to know a lot more about that.

“It wasn’t supposed to be amusing, it was supposed to be...” Kylo shrugged. What was he doing, anyway? He just needed to get Hux away for a little while. They both needed to learn something. “Inspiring?”

Hux gave him an icy look that he could only hold for a moment. With the mask on, he hated looking at Ren’s face because there was no real face to look at. Without the mask he hated looking at Ren’s face because it was so incongruous, such a shock, so monstrously beautiful in contrast to what he was. He sighed and shifted in his chair, making an uncomfortable sound.

“There will be... _other people_ there...”

Kylo grinned, sensing his prey weakening and diving in to finish the attack. “No, that’s the best part, for miles around it’s just the two of us and the woods. No distractions, no comm calls, no paperwork, no responsibility for a few days.”

Hux could not decide if that sounded like torture or paradise. If he was away from work he would surely be thinking about work. But a slight break from productivity had been known to increase productivity; after all he was the man who requisitioned that ping pong table in the recreation zone.

Kylo saw him teetering. He sighed.

“Of course this weekend was also slotted for Wentbridge to hold another seminar for the younger stormtroopers on the _facts of life...”_ he said, letting his eyes rove the ceiling as he bounced one foot. “He wanted you to be his guest speaker, you have such a way with the kids...”

“I’ll go, I’ll go!” Hux said, clapping a hand over his eyes. “Get out!”

 

\-------------------------------------

 

“Some _thing_ is on me.”

“Not venomous, you’re fine.”

“Oh. Something else is on me.”

“Not venomous, fine.”

“Oh.” Pause. “Something’s on me.”

“Yeaahhh, hold still --” Ren reached across the General’s shoulder and whacked the glittering blue insect hard, flicking it in a high arc away from them.

Hux froze with a grimace of stern constipation. “I am not enjoying this. I am not enjoying this at _all.”_

When he could bear to move again he refastened the top button of the pressed black shirt he wore and had loosened only slightly when the cool, autumnal fresh air had first hit his skin, daring him to find it innocuous. After hours of tromping through mud and sticks and brown and red leaves with creatures crawling all over and flying who knows where, Hux knew better. This was not a trip designed to help him relax, to better acquaint him with his decidedly difficult colleague. This was punishment. Or Ren was planning to assassinate him.

It had taken six corporals and a lieutenant to take down all the instructions Hux insisted on imparting before he would leave on his “training exercise” with Ren, making them each copy his precise notes in their own words and then read them back to him. He tried to find any excuse to stay back, down to the last moment before their scheduled departure when Ren burst into the General's quarters to find him under his washroom sink, insisting that he had to take the entire system apart to find the funny sound it kept making. The curses and threats that came afterward when Ren dragged him out of his washroom by the ankles and finished packing his things for him could be heard several corridors down.

“I still can’t believe you need your own tent,” Kylo chuckled as he set up his own in the clearing. 

“I need my own everything,” said Hux, laying out all the individual components of his tent in an orderly line before deciding how they fit together. He resented Ren for already knowing how to do this childish nonsense, but still had a feeling he could complete his setup first once he puzzled this out.

“These are sand trooper issue, they’re enormous,” said Kylo, glancing over his shoulder at his grumpy companion. “You afraid I’ll make you be the small spoon?”

Hux looked up, perplexed, the gears and circuits in his engineer’s mind trying to fit together the tent pieces completely before touching a single one. He shook off Ren’s nonsense -- another talent he had acquired in recent times -- and returned to his analysis.

“You know of the two of us, I’m the only one who can stare at a thing and get it to move,” said Kylo as he screwed poles together and snapped the canvas in snugly. “You’d be much better off just letting me help you --”

He turned his head at the noise and raised an eyebrow to see Hux with his tent further assembled than his own, snapping the canvas down tightly across his perfectly constructed beams.

“What’s the matter, Ren?” he asked with a bored expression as he finished the final piece. “Prior preparation prevents poor performance.” He sneered and took his bag into his tent, zipping it loudly shut.

Kylo scowled as his loose canvas flapped in the cool wind, smacking him in the face. “I _was_ going to share my snacks with you, _Armitage.”_

 

\----------------------------------

 

ZZZIIIIPPP.

“I know what you’re doing in there.”

“I _beg_ your pardon, this is a private residence!” Hux said, scandalized, snapping forward to zip the front of his tent back.

ZZIIIPP.

“You’re working. I told you not to bring that fucking data pad.”

“I cannot rely on those proto-mitochondria back at the compound to bash their foreheads against their comm pads and produce intelligible work! I can handle this in seconds!” ZZZIIIPP.

ZZZIIIIIPP.

“You left Ripley in charge, you love Ripley, don’t be a grump.”

“She has deplorable penmanship, Ren, sod off.” ZIIP.

A cough from outside.

ZZZIIIIIPPP.

“Hux. You are not working. You are enjoying nature and fresh air and a delightful evening with your partner. Get out here and help me make a fire.”

Hux flushed at the word partner. Ren had never described them that way before. But of course he was simply feeling friendlier lately and he just meant to entice him to feel friendly as well. Work partner. Associate. Colleague. Compatriot. Acquaintance. Rival.

He tried not to grumble as he laid his tablet carefully to the side and crawled out into the brisk autumn evening. Ren, he reasoned, would not let up, and it was impossible to work under such conditions. 

“Can’t you just make a fire with your mystical mind powers?” Hux asked, voice heavy with sarcasm.

Kylo couldn’t help but smile as he laid a circle of stones between his tent and the General’s, the way his mother had taught him long ago. It wasn’t hard to feel out Hux’s confusion and even fear with regard to his abilities, and it wasn’t hard to understand where it came from either. The man had a lot of doubt; outward and inward facing. The voice of one master would tell Kylo to use that fear to crush him, and the voice of another master would tell him to be compassionate. His compassion had been growing within him like a host of delightful weeds, and he found less and less inclination to stomp it out.

“You must know how to do this,” he said, ignoring the General’s question and setting up the largest sticks in an A frame. “Didn’t you have some Scout program on Arkanis? Lil’ Lake Monsters, Lichen Lads, that sort of thing?”

Hux scowled as he helped shred the paperlike bark into thin strips. He was silent for such a long moment Kylo was sure he wouldn’t answer.

“My father oversaw a pre-Academy youth program,” he said, setting the strips in front of the kindling where they would catch. “Strength training, boxing, wilderness survival exercises, the man even built a fear cage.”

Kylo lifted an eyebrow as he lit the fire, watching the flickers of orange grow and splash across Hux’s features, deepening the shadows under his eyebrows. His voice sounded almost wistful.

“I was not permitted to join,” said Hux, watching the flames grow. 

Kylo winced. Yet another stab at the ego of young Armitage. Even Han had been eager to share things with his son, show him every bolt and weld on the Falcon, and Leia took him out in the woods whenever it was just the two of them, teaching him about plants and insects and campfires and which trees he shouldn’t pee on. 

“I’m sure he was just looking out for you,” Kylo said.

“Yes, of course,” Hux stood, dusting off his hands and looked around. “Well we’ve accomplished the fire, so congratulations on achieving what your slack-jawed, sloping-browed ancestors were able to do oh, four or five generations ago --”

“Hux.”

“Shall we spear something or would you prefer to masticate on twigs and small rocks? I congratulate you on still having the jaw for such a feat..."

Kylo reached into his bag and produced a parcel with a grin. It was cold sealed and tightly packed, and he handed it to Hux who opened it with a frown to find beautiful half moon shaped pastries, lovingly crimped all around the edges.

“Hand pies?” he asked, feeling the very slightest tug at the place where his feelings might be. 

“I had Dallah make them up for us just before we left. Steak and potato, bacon and onion, and pork with everything. Sit back down.”

“I haven’t had these in years,” said Hux, trying to sound as if he were scoffing, as if hand pies were a silly part of his past like an old sweater that didn’t fit anymore, but he could smell them faintly through the bag and the memories of rainy afternoons at home, his governess humming softly as she washed up, his father nowhere to be seen or heard, came pounding back into his heart like punches. He sat.

Kylo already had his skillet settled on part of the fire and the image of it -- of Kylo Ren with a skillet, gently taking a sack of pies from him and laying them on the iron side by side -- was so strange and incongruous and just funny that Hux had no choice but to relax and even allow a smile.

He was silent as the knight watched his skillet, using a stick to flip the pies halfway through (here Hux muttered a single quiet “Oh _Ren.”_ ) When they were deemed hot enough he swept his hand and lifted the hot skillet without touching it, casting an almost bashful look at Hux. 

“Left the gloves at home,” he muttered as he produced a couple of beers. “But this I didn’t forget.”

Hux was a little embarrassed now. The beer was a dark, bitter Arkanish brew, one he was well familiar with. The hand pies looked like they were his own governess’s recipe, small and tightly crimped and that perfect flaky crust that his mouth was already stinging for. He pursed his lips.

“Ren,” he said. “Why are you doing all this? Really.”

Kylo was busy trying to pick up a hot pie with his bare fingers without touching the skillet. Tricky work. He darted a look up at Hux who, now that it was getting dark and the fire was throwing orange and red across his face in smooth waves and ripples, made it difficult not to stare.

“Eat something, ginger, you’re too skinny,” he said, cracking open his beer.

“Ren,” he groaned.

“I’m being serious! There’s a real security issue when you stand sideways, the entire base loses sight of you. Eat.”

Hux glared at his compatriot for a moment, then glared into the skillet, unable to resist those crisp little pies any longer, and he reached for one with delicate fingers.

“Unsporting way to poison a man...” he mumbled.

Kylo huffed a laugh, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “What a way to go though, yeah? Take a bite, you’ll thank me.”

Hux took his advice, and a bite, and instantly regretted it, because his stone walls began to crumble at the first taste of the tender pastry and broke entirely at the sinful, luscious bacon and onion filling, hot and salty and terribly woefully wonderful, yanking from him a moan of delight so filthy and outrageous he may as well be under the bedsheets. And Ren was watching the whole time with that stupid smile on his face. Hux blushed to the very tips of his ears.

Kylo turned back to his beer, taking a long swig and pretending not to notice.

It hurt, it physically hurt, his saliva glands stabbing at his jaw, sending the message to take another bite idiot, now now, but he took a deep breath instead, closed his eyes, and said, “Thank you, Ren.”

Kylo raised both eyebrows and looked over. He hadn’t expected that. He smiled and gently tapped his beer against the untouched bottle Hux had sitting at his feet. _Clink._

“Of course.”

That was the absolute limit to Hux's capacity for mush, and they both sat some time in a manly silence, allowing the good influences of excellent food and drink and a crisp autumn evening to manifest camaraderie between them without the interference of their blundering language. 

When the pies had been finished off, Kylo reached back in his seemingly bottomless knapsack and came back with another two beers and a paper bag.

"There is another reason I asked you to come out here, Hux," he said, passing over one of the beers and shooting up little looks from beneath his lashes as he pawed the top of the bag.

Hux's ears began to burn, his giveaway any time he was the least bit embarrassed.

"Oh?"

Kylo grinned and popped open the bag, waving it under the General's nose. Hux darted back at once and frowned, peering in to see dozens of home made, rectangular, pillowy marshmallows.

"Scare my pants off, General," said Kylo, taking a marshmallow and spearing it on the end of a long stick before pressing the bag into Hux's not entirely willing hands. "Your best horror story, let's have it. You Arkanish have to have thousands of them for dark and stormy nights."

"I am significantly older than seven now, Ren," he said, wrinkling his nose at the fluffy confections in the bag. "And not very good at telling stories."

"That is just not true," said Kylo, jamming his marshmallow in the fire at once and setting it ablaze. "I caught you when you thought no one else was watching, inspiring the young troopers with your tales of the Bog Man?"

Hux flushed deeper. "You never."

"I did. And they were rapt with attention. You told them how the Bog Man loved the taste of little children with unmade beds or unwashed hair or how he snatched the children who skipped classes and training, you were positively beastly."

Hux caught himself smiling just a little.

"Well they listened," he said. He watched with horror as Kylo peeled the charred skin from his marshmallow and ate it. "What are you doing? That's terrible!"

"It's delicious."

"It's a good way to poison yourself."

"It's delicious poison. You have one. And tell me about the Bog Man."

"You're too old for the Bog Man."

They were both on the verge of laughing now and Hux relented enough to pull a marshmallow from the bag and spear it on a stick, turning it slowly over the fire. The wind blew frosty and fragrant, the scent of crisp leaves and tree bark strong on its back, and just beneath that the sharp tingling hint of snow yet to come, hitting right at the top of their noses.

"There is one other I know," he said. "A legend from long ago, about this creature in Lake Daruhm. The Great White Cretch'roth, also called the Terrible Elder."

Kylo's smile grew with his great surprise and he leaned forward, already shivering a little in anticipatory fear. Hux had a gift with that voice of his that he seemed to not even know about. He could project it to entire stadiums in a terrifying pitch, could make it snide and humiliating, soft and soothing as a purr, or just like this, foreshadowing and low, pulling you in and making you ache for the next word.

"Sightings and legends date back to ancient Arkanis, to scrawlings on temple walls of a pale creature of unfathomable size with a mouth full of row upon row of jagged, twisted teeth, depictions of human sacrifice thrown to its jaws," said Hux as he meticulously brûléed his marshmallow. "But for many years, terrifying cave drawings and oral history were the only evidence that anyone had ever believed in such a monster."

Kylo stabbed another marshmallow and torched it, watching Hux's face in the shifting amber of the flames. He wore the expression of storytelling well. Kylo found he wouldn't mind watching and listening to him for the rest of the night, even if it meant being petrified.

"Then, roughly two hundred years ago, people began disappearing off the shore of Lake Daruhm," Hux continued and the breeze, Kylo swore, shifted and grew colder. "Children playing too close to the water, the mothers who ran after them, fisherman by the boatload. After twelve losses, there was no explanation but one sighting, by a six year old girl, of a white tail in the water."

Kylo gave a horrified laugh and shook his shoulders, blowing out the fire that had almost entirely consumed his marshmallow.

"That's intense," he said. "Was that the last of it?"

"Oh no," Hux shook his head as he removed his flawless golden brown marshmallow from the fire, a masterpiece of brûlée, and bit delicately into one corner. "Only ten years ago there was another sighting off Long Abel Pier. A crew of respectable fisherman were about to make way when a fearsome white creature swam beneath the pier, very nearly breaking it apart with its bulk. It emerged to swallow a whole yak, then disappeared below the surface, leaving behind a few white scales and a terrible stench."

Kylo grinned, slowly shaking his head. "Fantastic," he said. "I love it."

"It's just a story," said Hux, trying to hide his hint of a smile by finishing his marshmallow.

"It was great. You'll have to take me to that lake some time and see if we can spot the Crotch'a'rocket."

"Cretch'roth!" Hux snapped. "Honestly, Ren."

"I'm sorry, how rude," he said though he was still smiling. "Poor fellow probably got that nickname all through school too."

Hux rolled his eyes. As insufferable as Ren was, was actively trying to be, there was that other, little, pesky notion fluttering around in his mind. He wanted to come to the lake with him. The cold, perpetually stormy, rocky bottomed, haunted, monster-infested lake. It was almost romantic.

"Well your pants are still on," Hux grumbled, then squeezed his eyes shut as he turned bright red. "I mean -- you aren't frightened out of your wits is what I -- because of what you said before when --"

"Disappointed?" Kylo flashed him a grin that stood out bright in the growing darkness.

Nothing irritated Hux more than losing his cool, especially in front of that swaggering crow, that overgrown teenager. He was by a long road the better man and yet all Ren had to do was say certain words in the right sequence, look at him from beneath those damned unnaturally long lashes or bite at those ridiculous pillowy lips of his -- Hux's highly organized mind became a frenzy of crossed wires and garbage notions.

"You try it, if you're so clever," he said, grabbing another marshmallow from the bag, though he refused to acknowledge that they were delicious. "And if you get from me so much as a shudder --"

"Then I can take your pants off?"

"REN!" A nearly purple faced General threw his marshmallow and it bounced off of Kylo's shoulder as the giant knight gave a booming laugh, holding up his hands in surrender.

"I'm sorry," he said, his face betraying the lie at once as he picked up the confection and brushed off only most of the dirt before spearing it and shoving it in the fire to Hux's horror. He thought a moment while the General snuck a fresh one out of the bag.

"I have one," said Kylo. "This is a ghost story. And it's a love story."

Hux waited for his own eyeroll that never came. Both of these subjects were equally ludicrous to him on a given day, both a waste of time. But in this setting, on this night, with Kylo Ren's low dark chocolate voice speaking against the occasional flutters of cool wind that carried the scent of the pine and the fire, it was welcome. He found himself opening up to thoughts of ghosts, opening up to thoughts of love. Well. In stories, anyway.

"During the War of Tori'ah in the Outer Reach, a lot of couples were separated on all sides," Kylo began. "Both would go off to fight or one would stay home, sometimes it would be years before they could see each other again. Sometimes they never saw each other at all. The story I was told was about a woman whose husband finally came home after being gone for almost two years. She had cried every night while he was gone, begging for his safe return, and when she finally saw him again, unharmed, she ran to him and covered him with kisses."

Hux squirmed a little as he heard Kylo talk so openly about affection and love. This was new, unusual, and he found himself glaring at his toasting marshmallow as he turned it, trying not to replay the word "kisses" spoken in that low, gentle voice.

"But her husband didn't give her the greeting she expected. Instead of catching her up in his arms and kissing her back, all he said was 'Wife, feed me.' Well she was so happy to have him back and she understood he must be starving, she cooked him a delicious meal without question. He said nothing else to her, just ate, and went directly to bed. But she was still so happy, he was the love of her life, and nothing mattered but having him by her side again. She held him all night and didn't question it."

Hux glanced over at the storyteller and looked away at once when he found Kylo's eyes focused on him. He found himself longing for the ghost portion of the story -- could Ren tell in the dark how deeply he was blushing? Of course he could, it was bloody Ren.

"The next morning, the wife expected her husband to return to normal but he slept most of the day, and when he awoke, all he said was the same thing, 'Wife, feed me', and as soon as he was fed he went right back to sleep," Kylo began stirring at the fire with his stick and adding a few more pieces of wood. "This behavior continued for several days with the wife growing more and more concerned, unable to pass it off as trauma from battle. She was beginning to smell something strange around him, something cloying and thick, coppery, like old metal."

 _Blood, of course,_ Hux thought with what wanted to be a superior scoff but instead he found himself shuddering just a little as he imagined it. He knew the smell well but to smell it in your own home and not see the evidence of it...

"Finally she confessed her worries to her Jedi priest," Kylo continued. "Who believed her husband to be possessed by a dark and terrible influence. He followed her to her home and when the husband woke up and said 'Wife, feed me' he found the Jedi instead of his wife, who quickly drove away the evil spirit. The husband's body became a rotted corpse and fell to the floor in a stinking pile, long dead."

"Oh Ren!" Hux squirmed, wrinkling his nose, trying to hide his shivers with a look of revulsion.

Kylo couldn't help a tiny smile. "Sadly he had been dead for many months. And even worse, this wife was one of many. She was one of the lucky few who escaped without being consumed herself." He shrugged and resumed poking at the fire. "That's how it was told to me, anyway."

Hux stared at him a moment. So much for a love story. The shudders he was promised were there for certain, though he would never admit it to Ren. After the carnage he had witnessed in his time, such fairytales should have no effect on him. It was the chill, perhaps.

"Very amusing," he said, taking a long pull of his beer and trying to keep his voice flat. "Well Ren, have we completed the ritual? Satisfied whatever boyhood craving made you drag me out here away from important work? I take it we can safely go to bed now and not have to perform any more puerile capers? Or perhaps you brought a _guitar?"_

Kylo's feelings weren't damaged by the General's rant. He knew Hux well enough by now to know when his discomfort was being influenced by something else. He couldn't blame him; Kylo's discomfort was also being influenced by something else. There was a very specific craving that he wanted to satisfy but he wasn't sure he could address it out loud just yet. It crackled around the edges of them like their campfire, popping and sparking and making smoke. One wrong move and there would be burns.

"We can go to bed," he said, leveling him with a look, letting the words hang between them, a stormcloud of invitation or threat, open and dangerous and full of potential.

Hux's ears and the back of his neck burned. He looked away, busying himself with tidying up the campsite, clearing up their bottles and tightly crimping the bag with the leftover marshmallows, trying to avoid Ren's gaze as he lounged there like an overgrown housecat, smiling at him in that terribly irritating way of his.

"I suppose we should do something about this?" Hux gestured to the fire, finding himself reluctant to destroy something so warm and so pretty.

"I'll keep an eye on it," said Kylo flicking his eyes from the flames up to Hux, standing above him. 

"You'll be asleep. We should put it out."

"I'll keep an _eye_ on it," he stressed, wiggling the fingers of one enormous hand, implying his influence was already blanketing their little campsite, a fact which Hux could not decide between finding comforting or disturbing. "You'll get cold, look at you with your zero body mass and brittle little bird bones."

Hux cast him a withering glare and rolled his shoulders. It was always difficult being next to Ren with his gigantic, flawless frame, looking as if he could throw Hux over his shoulder and twist him like a pretzel. Hux had been training daily, increasing his resistance more each week, pushing himself and punishing himself, and yet he still felt like he was made of toothpicks when standing beside the man. The thought was mortifying and, something simmering just beneath that, electrifying. 

"Do what you please, Ren," he said, and zipped himself into his tent.

Kylo pursed his lips, sighing quietly. What good was it to keep the fire going? That man was an iceberg.

"If you get scared in the middle of the night," he said, crawling slowly into his own tent and resenting the glow of the data pad he could see through the canvas of the tent beside him. "If my story was just too terrifying for you and you find you can't possibly be alone..."

"Ren..." A warning growl from next door.

"I'm just saying my zipper is always open. Figuratively speaking. Tent zipper. You know what I mean."

Silence.

How badly Kylo wanted to push his luck, to try for just one more reaction from that delightfully reactionary ginger, but he knew. He knew one more push would send Hux tromping off into the woods to be alone, tent and all, and that would actually be dangerous. Kylo was using the bare minimum of his abilities to keep slithercrickets and druskots and other horrible things that Hux probably didn't know existed away from their campsite, and he didn't want to have to chase after an unwilling and prideful General in the night to inform him that while he was very skilled in all forms of combat, there was a bright pink fluffy caterpillar out here that could still kill him stone dead.

The trouble now was falling asleep while they were so close to each other. That was a new adventure for both of them. Hux was a military man, had slept in barracks rooms, on crowded ships, in hastily constructed shelters -- all for training exercises of course, but the effect was the same. He had trained himself to sleep when he ordered his mind to do so, to shut off and be still for four hours, six on the weekends, and it made no matter where or with whom he did so.

Except now. Because it had been many a long year since he'd slept like this, outside, in nature, and never in such highly populated nature, with so many unexplained sounds and creatures living and moving and having their own agendas all around him. It was, he reminded himself, perfectly logical and right that so much in and around the woods should be active at night and yet each sound, each crunch and whirr and slither and snap and creak and twitch and groan and cry and and rustle made him more and more tense until he felt as relaxed as petrified rock. Ren's story, that idiotic nonsense ghost drabble, played over and over in his mind, and he kept seeing that woman curled up in bed with that thing that was not her husband ---

Kylo always had trouble sleeping, ever since he was a little child. He would lay there for hours and try to imagine colors and shapes that became places he would eventually go, visualizing little travel plans for himself. He got so little silence much of the time that the insomnia became almost a companion, and the few hours of staring at the dark alone were a kind of meditation. Which is why he heard Hux the moment he got up and out of his tent and started pacing nervously around the fire.

"Hux?" Kylo opened the front of his tent and peered out. "What's wrong?"

Hux snapped his head to the side and almost jolted afresh. Kylo was dressed down, in black sleep pants and a black tank top, his broad creamy shoulders and arms exposed. Hux swallowed, looking away. 

"Nothing, Ren, go back to sleep."

"Wasn't asleep," he said, leaning out of his open tent and watching the General with some concern. "What, tell me. My story was too scary, right?" He grinned.

Hux rolled his eyes. "Ren, I swear, you are an infant, this whole trip was a waste of time and if you think --"

There was a loud howl from the woods and Hux jumped and spun toward it, spinning his blaster out of his boot holster and aiming it at the trees.

"Woah, woah, quickdraw, at ease!" Kylo put his hands up, trying not to laugh.

"Ren, what the fuck was that, what was that?" Hux barked, trying to keep the tremor from his voice as he pointed his blaster into darkness.

Kylo was at his side, laying his hand on his arm gently and giving him a tentative smile. "There are a lot of animals out here, Hux," he said. "That one sounded like it was far away. Why don't you come and sit with me for a little while? Nothing's going to get us."

Hux was more than a little embarrassed at his outburst. He lowered his blaster and disarmed it with a snap, feeling his ears burn again. 

"No no, I'm sorry, Ren, I... Got a little overexcited, perhaps. Unlike me. I suppose I've been behind a desk too long."

"Come on," Kylo tugged Hux's arm and just as with everything, wth this whole ridiculous trip, he relented, ducking down and entered Kylo's tent, feeling like an intruder and like he was welcome at the same time.

It was a little more spacious than his own tent, or maybe it just seemed that way because he hadn't brought along two data pads and a stack of paperwork and a zero-point hot connector to make them all align with the _Finalizer's_ main computer. He looked around at the comfy pillows and bedspread Ren had set out, squishing merrily beneath them both, and noticed that Ren was staring at him.

"That's what you're wearing to bed?" he asked with no attempt to hide his laugh.

Hux looked down at himself. "What?!" he asked. "We're in nature! We could have to run from... Things at any moment!"

Kylo pursed his lips and shook his head. "You can do away with the boots, General, come on. This campsite's safe, and you're supposed to be relaxing."

Hux grumbled but felt that he was obliged, as something of a guest, to obey. He unsnapped his holster first and laid it and his blaster aside, then tugged off his boots and left them outside the tent. He glanced at Kylo, somewhat bashful now. This was the least dressed he had ever been in front of the knight.

"I hope this satisfies you," he said. His usually gruff and commanding voice sounded small to him now, uncertain, and he tried to blame it on their close quarters, on the inability to project and threaten, but that had nothing to do with it and he knew damn well. They were alone, the two of them, in a small space, made warm by their body heat and the crackling orange fire just outside, and there was something buzzing between them like bad feedback, something they both needed to forget about forever. Or do something about right now.

Kylo looked him lazily up and down with that smirk playing right at the edge of his lips.

"You gonna sleep with all your clothes on?" He asked.

Hux felt himself pale first and then all the color rushed to his face at once.

"I hadn't --- I hadn't thought of going to sleep here, I was just..." _Well then what were you planning to do here, idiot?_

"Come on, you're much safer the closer you are to me," Kylo couldn't stop himself from grinning. "Undress. Relax. Sleep. You'll be up all night fussing if you go back to your own tent."

Hux's jaw dropped and he tried to find an argument. All that left his lips were incoherent little splutters of "I beg your" and "how dare you" and "I'll have you know" before he finally relented, like Kylo's moon always pulled his tide, and turned away to unbutton his shirt and fold it in a tight little package beside his holster in the corner, then his slacks, also folded and pressed ruler-straight. He was almost trembling now, left in an undershirt and black boxers, and unable to account for his terrible anxiety. In the academy he'd had to shower with dozens of other officers and no one thought anything of it. 

"You must be freezing, here, lie down," said Kylo, taking the bulk of the blankets and throwing them over Hux, who palmed his face as he turned his back toward Kylo, hiding his humiliation.

"Uhh right, th-thank you," he said, gripping the covers and trying to unclench. _At least you're not jumping and twitching at every silly damn noise you hear out in the woods like a moron._ he reminded himself. As much as he hated to admit it, Ren was right. He would sleep better here. If he could just forget that this was Ren's tent, that the hulking god was lying right beside him, touching distance, then maybe sleep would come. 

Another howl came, closer and louder, and Hux jumped backward against Kylo's gigantic chest. He took half a second for pleasure to flood him, half a second for that shiver of delight and warmth and oh my glory is he _big_ to wash over him in dizzying waves, before he scrambled forward with a choked apology, desperate for distance he didn't really want.

"I'm sorry, I just -- the noise, I --"

Kylo's large hand was at Hux's hip, stopping him, big fingers curling just slightly into the dip in his hip bone.

"No, it's fine, stay," said Kylo, voice low and soft and almost pleading. Oh it was fine, it was so fine, so very very fine. He hadn't been pressed close to someone in so long, hadn't felt another person without his gloves in so very long, and he wanted this, not just another person but _this_ , this slim, pale, delicious ginger against him, all the way against him, in all the places he could think of. "Stay, you just need to relax."

Hux was fully shaking now, the feeling of Kylo's hand on his hip, his big body so close behind his, that inch or two of negative space between them he was dying to close... Oh he would never relax like this, not in a hundred years. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw, thinking desperately of disassembling the engine of his first TIE fighter.

Kylo was almost worried now. Hux was truly shaking, was not shoving him away, was not saying a word to him at all -- any other day he would have clocked him in the nose for laying a finger on him. The closeness was driving him crazy; he was so near he could smell the soap the General used, some spicy, woodsy scent that was better than cologne and blended in beautifully with the fire and the pine all around them. He couldn't resist moving in closer under pretense of tucking the blankets in tighter around Hux's narrow shoulders. He dipped his face just slightly into the curve at the back of his neck, pressed his hips, oh, just slightly against that tiny backside, and there it was, all around him, the scent and the feeling of Hux beyond those layers and barriers and locks he spent so much time putting up. Still there were more barriers to take down, and Kylo was desperate to find out.

Hux shifted uncomfortably, trying to inject that vinegar back into his voice.

"Ren," he said with a sigh. "I know you're probably used to it, but sleeping with your saber on is just stupid. If you accidentally ignite that thing in your sleep, you'll cut my arse in half."

Kylo froze and held his breath, thinking, _Oh fuck._ Hux also froze and held his breath thinking, Oh fuck.. Hux's next thought was, _Is that whole thing his...? No, surely not._

"I'm sorry, I'll --" Kylo was in the middle of panicking, trying to think of the best way to backstep, to keep him near without frightening him out of his wits or making him want to pull his gun again, when the strangest sound floated its way out of the pillow, muffled and half choked and entirely alien to him -- little huffing breaths that Hux was trying to hide but could only possibly be laughter. 

"Are you... Are you laughing?" Kylo was too dumbfounded to be insulted. "You can do that?"

The laughter only increased and Hux buried his face deeper in the pillow to try and stifle it, trying to choke out a half-formed apology that only made matters worse. Kylo just grinned, holding the slim hip in front of him and lifted his head to try to get a glimpse of this phenomenon. It was the loveliest sound he'd ever heard and his embarrassment was taking a backseat to his absolute delight.

"Apologies," Hux finally sighed, drawing a hand down his face. "I didn't mean it how it must have sounded... I'm just..." _Possibly drunk on two beers and feelings I've been repressing from the moment I met you. Touch starved and desperately alone and terrified that you'll see more of my skin than this. Trying very hard to keep you from noticing that I've got the same problem you seem to be having...._ "Just tired I suppose."

Kylo felt a wash of relief. His heart was punching around somewhere in his throat.

"Then sleep," he rumbled, leaning forward again and pressing Hux against his chest, letting his lips ghost against the back of his smooth neck. "Relax and sleep."

His fingers rubbed soothing circles against Hux's hip, expecting at any moment to be sharply rejected with an elbow to the throat, but when he heard a shaky breath creeping its way from Hux's lips, he felt brave enough to move his hand beneath Hux's undershirt and smooth its way along a flat, soft stomach. He felt muscles tense beneath his hand as Hux swallowed and said, "Ren..." But he spread out his fingers and pressed the slim body back against his, making soothing sounds.

"It's okay, you don't have to do anything," he whispered against Hux's neck, pressing light, feathery kisses against the smooth skin. "You don't have to work for once. Relax."

He wanted to take care of everything. He wanted to watch the uptight General come unraveled from his touch and his lips and his voice. He wanted to find out what faces he made when this part of him was touched that way or what sound he made when he was right at the edge and then made to wait one more agonizing minute. He wanted to do all the work for once, and see what it felt like to watch his good work take effect.

Kylo slid his hand down to the waistband of Hux's boxers and he could tell before his fingers even slipped beneath the fabric, could tell by the way Hux was shaking in his arms, could tell by the soft sounds escaping his parted lips, could tell by the way his hips jumped when Kylo's fingers slid down, Hux was ready to be touched. Before Kylo's fingertips could even brush against him, Hux sat up, yelping as if he'd been burned, throwing off the covers and shaking his head.

"Thanks all the same Ren I'd best be sleeping in my own tent tonight nocturnal beasts and all I'm sure they won't bother me if I don't bother them well jolly nice of you to offer but you know I'm used to sleeping in my own quarters and --" he was already up on his knees with his things in his arms and would have leapt out of the tent in another minute if Kylo wasn't there to sit up and lay his hands on Hux's shoulders.

"Hux," he said carefully. "I'm doing my best to stay out of that perfect little mind of yours. But I also want to get the truth from you and that's a pretty tall order sometimes."

He took the General's things out of his arms, ignoring the glare he was being thrown that might have been fury and might have been terror. He wrapped his long fingers around Hux's thin wrists, gently and lightly, watching his crisp tart green apple eyes all the while.

"Please," he said, and his voice had the slightest tear to the edge. "Tell me how you feel about me."

Hux wanted to crumble in his arms like overbaked biscuits. There were a thousand words that were stuck up in his throat, waiting to be said, waiting to come out, jamming up the works because they all fit and none of them fit and the words that beat them all back were his father's. _Too skinny. Useless. Foolish. Sickly little freak._

Hux took a deep breath. "I think you're a fine commander, if somewhat rash, and hardly ever in control of those mystical mind powers, but with some training --"

Kylo growled a little and squeezed his wrists. 

"Hux," he said. "You're being obtuse. And I can't tell if you do it because you just don't know another way or because you really want me to throw you down and teach you a lesson."

Hux's eyes fluttered as a carnival of sinful imagery slithered unbidden across his mind and if Kylo was not, as he claimed, actively reading him, he could certainly read the expression on his face unless he was bat blind. Kylo released one wrist to slip a hand around the back of Hux's neck and pull his face close, meeting his lips with a sound that was desperate and painful and which was echoed in his partner as their lips melted like butter together, delicious and sizzling with potential.

Kylo pulled back just far enough to speak.

"Tell me how you feel about me," he said again.

Hux licked his lips. All he wanted was more of that. He didn't want to take a test first.

"You... You are..." he huffed and brought up a hand to Kylo's cheek, tracing his jaw with his thumb. "You are a ridiculous creature. And you are too, too perfect. And it is so bloody difficult to be around you that I really should stop trying entirely but I also feel as if I want to drop dead when we're not in the same room."

Kylo felt something enormous happening in his stomach and he tried to swallow it down and keep his face looking normal.

"Because _I'm_ in love with you," said Kylo.

Hux stared at him a moment, slowly lowering his hand. A look of horror and fury was twisting the expression that had, moments before, wanted so badly to be affectionate, and he threw his hands in the air.

"That is _just like_ you, Ren!" he shouted. "Have you any notion how hard it was for me to say what I just said? That was terrifying! And you just have to come out with every cannon firing as if it's nothing at all, and of course you aren't _really_ because that's just the sort of adolescent nonsense you _would_ pull at a time like this --"

"What do you mean I'm not really?" Kylo frowned. "I've given it a lot of sincere thought."

"Oh come now Ren, you have not, you couldn't possibly, you're just -- you don't know..." He looked around the tent for inspiration and found only a frustrated sigh.

Kylo smiled and reached for the back of his neck again.

"Look, will you just shut up and let me try to explain?" He asked as he leaned in for another kiss.

And there went Hux melting again, losing that precious control he always fought for tooth and claw. His hands found their way to Kylo's unruly mass of hair and he hung on for dear life, pulling gently as they both sighed against each other, lips moulding and smoothing together like flame.

Hux pulled back and realized his eyes had fallen shut and he couldn't seem to make them open. Drunkenly he whispered, "You haven't explained anything."

"I'm still explaining, be quiet and lie down," Kylo said as he peeled Hux's shirt up over his head. "It might take a while, there's a few different arguments."

Now Hux opened his eyes and there was real fear as Kylo undressed him and pushed him gently back against the covers, kissing his neck until his head hit the pillow.

"You're so fucking beautiful," Kylo said as he sat up and looked down, Hux's slender body bathed in orange from the campfire coming through the mesh window of the tent.

"Oh fuck, please don't," Hux turned his head to the side, squirming in embarrassment.

"I think I have to," he said, running his large hands down Hux's sides and hooking them into the waistband of his boxers. He pulled them slowly down, kissing Hux's hip as he tossed them off to the side. He could feel Hux squirming again, wanting to curl up and hide, but he was finally there with nothing to hide behind, no austere General coat to tuck around himself, and to Kylo he had never appeared more breathtaking. His hands remained splayed out against Hux's slim sides, warm and reassuring while at the same time holding him in place as his lips teased their way down a sharply curved hip bone.

Hux was biting at his lips hard enough to taste blood. His throat was stopped up with a rocketing heart, trying to escape, and he found his shaky hand reaching down -- oh fuck, was this really what they were doing? -- to grip Kylo's hair. An answering hum made him hold tighter out of instinct, though he hardly had control over his extremities. 

"Ren, please..." He tried once more, though he was arguing merely from habit now. "This is m-madness..."

"I agree," said Kylo, pressing a kiss to the end of Hux's length and waiting patiently to hold Hux down as he hissed and writhed in response before taking him in slowly, savoring each centimeter like something delicious and long, long anticipated.

"Ahh! Kylo! Fuck!"

Kylo smiled around him as slender hips bucked involuntarily upward, causing more hissing and cursing and a low, filthy moan that made them both feel a ripple of warmth flickering through them like flame. Kylo wanted to swallow him. His electrifying sounds, the taste of his skin, his own name coming from him like that, so desperate and ragged -- he was fighting himself to stay calm and be slow with the suddenly, adorably bashful General.

He pulled away with a soft sound and asked, "When was the last time someone did this for you, Hux?"

Hux rolled his head back, glaring and the ceiling as a growl rumbled from his throat.

"Ohhhh fuckoff Ren oh fuck _ooofffff...."_

 _That_ long? Fuck," he said. "Hold on tight, my good man, this might be the first of many..."

Kylo grabbed Hux by his waist and tucked his fingers into the small of his back, large fingertips effortlessly lacing at the base of his spine with plenty of room to hold his hips with his thumbs. He hoisted him up off the floor, ignoring the gasp of surprise or indignation or excitement or all of those, and resumed his work, deep and fast, groaning against him.

"Ren! I can't --" Hux slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle any further humiliating sounds and rolled his head back onto the sleeping mat.

Every second, every slip of his burning hot lips, his clever tongue curling around him as if it were holding him, soothing him, was transforming Hux from a proud and tightly bound General into a half mad, begging, red faced disaster. Kylo was so _huge_ , his hands and his lips and his arms so huge, the thighs pressing against the backs of Hux's legs and the strong back his legs had involuntarily hooked themselves around when he found himself being lifted directly into Kylo's mouth -- the man was a giant. Were Hux's usually highly coordinated mind free to accept another thought into it apart from the crush of sensations pounding up from his hips, Ren's size might have finally begun to hit home.

Kylo groaned against him, feeling the shift of power, the telltale jump in those slender hips, and he held on as the ginger in his hands writhed, reaching above his head to grip at the pillow.

"Oh fuck, Ren, stop, s-stop, I'm --" it was too late. Hux curled his body backward, gasping and shuddering as the zenith hit him like a punch to the jaw, laying him out against the covers, a mess of shivers and sighs.

Kylo held him through it, taking in everything like a hot drink on a frigid night, like he needed every drop. The way Hux's body moved as he reached the end, the summery salty taste of him, the way his accent lost just a bit of its polish and turned ragged at its edges as he fought for control that he would not gain -- it was all gorgeous and primal, perfect. Kylo wanted more the instant the last of it was gone.

"Beautiful," he whispered against a pale hip bone as he caught his breath and flicked his eyes across the shivering body before him to see Hux trying to breathe too, shaky and shallow. "Just beautiful."

"Ren... I..." Hux reached out to find a messy head of dark hair. "Oh, come up here, please."

Kylo smiled. For once, the "please" didn't sound sarcastic. He crawled up over Hux's body, carefully placing soft, lingering kisses along the way. When their faces were level, he stroked Hux's hair back from his face, watching his bright green eyes, feverish in the dim light of the tent.

"Ren, I swear, if this is some manner of prank just to humiliate me --"

Kylo laughed long and loud, tucking his face into his shoulder to try and stifle it.

"Then I'm in big trouble myself, General."

Hux could feel Kylo, so close to him, could feel how very excited he was and it sent a shiver of anticipation and need and thrill and longing all through him that made him, just for a moment, forget about his reputation. 

"Very big," he said. "Trouble. That is."

He found his hand drifting down to brush against Kylo's very big trouble. That shiver took him again, took them both. He found his fingers wrapping around Kylo's length, found his lips at the base of Kylo's smooth neck, finding all his paint splatter freckles with his tastebuds and feeling the corridor of his throat move with a moan each time he did something with his hand that the knight liked. It was dangerous and it was new. It was warm and it was familiar. It was growing more thrilling by the second.

"Hux... Oh fuck, I..." Kylo held his hip, gripping tightly and burying his face in Hux's copper hair that smelled delicious, like their campfire and whatever he used to keep it set so straight. It was a miracle that Hux had let things go this far, had actually begun to respond to Kylo at all, and as much as he wanted to lie still and let things happen, he couldn't help pushing his luck just a little further. Kylo reached across the tent into his pack and produced a small bottle of oil.

Hux looked at it with a faint smirk, drawing his hand back.

"You always carry that with you on camping trips, Ren?"

"It's very good for burns," he said, pouring a little on his hands. "And... I felt optimistic. About this trip."

He nudged Hux onto his back and bit his lip as he slicked the oil onto his own straining length as generously as he could before turning back to Hux and stroking his backside with his fingertips.

"Is this okay?" 

Hux jumped and flushed all the way from his ears to the tops of his thighs.

"Oh fuck, oh Ren, oh fuck...." he groaned, shutting his eyes as waves of shocked arousal swept him. He breathed through it and swallowed, nodding. "Yes. Fuck. Yes."

Kylo pressed a slick middle finger to Hux's opening, probing gently. "Are you sure?" he asked as he slipped inside.

Hux threw his head back with a soft cry and nodded again. Kylo worked in a little deeper, sliding back and forth, watching Hux's face for every lovely, strained reaction.

"Relax," said Kylo. "I mean it this time. Really relax, you'll like it."

He added a second finger, slowly and carefully stretching while he watched Hux moan and writhe under him, his face a deep red and his breaths coming in high little gasps.

"Beautiful, you're so perfect," said Kylo.

"Ren, please," Hux hissed, flushed and embarrassed but desperate for more, his body aching for something, anything, and he had a feeling he knew but he was a little afraid to ask.

"Tell me, Hux," he said, his voice straining as he forced himself to be slow. "Please tell me you love me."

Hux squirmed, his face and shoulders red, all of him trembling, the words stuck somewhere in his throat. 

"I... I never... Ren, don't --" he shook his head as if trying to shake it free of that terrifying thought, that heavy and complicated concept, that thing he simply would not hear or say. "Ask me something else..."

Kylo smiled as his fingers worked inside of Hux, hitting that glorious spot right where he knew he'd drive him crazy. 

"Are you ready for me?" Kylo asked.

Hux hitched a gasp, trying to choke out a yes and managing only a weak sound that made him want to sink further into the pillow. He nodded and Kylo scanned his face, looking for any hesitation. There was a feeling of longing as Kylo's fingers left Hux, almost a sorrow as his body ached for him, but a shivery anticipation replaced it as those soft, plush lips hit his neck again and something touched him -- _oh, fuck --_ right there, replacing one pressure with another, so much greater and more dangerous.

Slowly, Kylo slid in, inch by careful inch, soothing with kisses at Hux's pale neck and trembling lips, whispering sweet reassuring things. _I love you, you're beautiful, you're perfect, oh fuck yes._ Finally he could go no further and Hux was lost to pride, to sense and reason, vision a blur, clutching at his knight's broad back and biting at his shoulder to keep his soft sounds from escaping. Kylo held him by his hip and pulled back, groaning as he eased his way in again.

"Ahh, Ren," Hux moaned, muffled, against his shoulder.

"I'm here, I've got you," he said, laying burning kisses against the side of his face. "You're all right?"

Hux muttered something against Kylo's shoulder, something hitched like a cry and half intelligible and Ren could only make out the cadence but not the words. He pulled the ginger hair at his shoulder gently away and rolled his hips forward again, watching the effect on his face like a thunderstorm of pleasure.

"What was that, Hux? I didn't hear."

Hux flashed him a look, green eyes reflecting the orange cutting in from the firelight outside, and he lowered his face again, clenching his jaw.

"I love you," he said through tightly set teeth.

Kylo groaned and lifted his face to kiss him, his other hand drifting down between their bodies to find Hux awake and in need, and he stroked him in time with the rhythm of his hips.

"Again, say it again, please," he begged against Hux's lips. "As grumpy as you like, but please, one more time."

Hux sucked in a breath at the attack from both sides, his every inch alive with what Kylo was doing and no room to run or to hide, and it was such a pleasure to be helpless beneath him he could hardly find the breath to say so. He grabbed a handful of that messy dark hair and found himself growling it, moaning it, whimpering it, whispering it between kisses, I love you, I love you, I love you.

He felt it building again, a pressure between his hips, coiling in his stomach like a snake in strike position, and as Kylo rolled his hips and slid his hand up and down Hux's length, building intensity, he gave up the fight, threw back his head, and cried out his climax to his last breath.

Just the noise alone might have sent Kylo over the edge if he hadn't been poised there already. With Hux's cry to spur him on he added his own animal howl to the evening. It rocked him to his core, shaking his ribs, shattering him, until they both lay still, shipwrecked.

It took several long moments for Kylo to find the strength to lift his hand to Hux's face. He traced the curve of his jaw and pressed a sleepy kiss after the trail of his fingertips.

"I'm so glad my story was too scary for you."

"Oh shut your face, Ren."

"No honestly, if you hadn't felt the need to seek the shelter of my protection, maybe we never --"

"I'm going back to my tent now --"

"Don't you dare!" 

"Oof! You weigh a tonne!"

Kylo held Hux in his arms with a smug grin, a grin which grew as little kisses landed on his collarbone, quietly, secretly, so light he could only just feel them.

"Will the campfire be all right?" Hux asked, pulling the blankets up to cover them both.

"I've got my eye on it," said Kylo, burying a kiss in his ginger hair.  



End file.
